Cat Phantom VI |
“Hakamada, about you…”
“Yes?”
“Are you fine… you know, about the specters…”
“Yeah.”
A small smile crossed my face as I told him not to worry about it.
“It’s my choice, and I’ll try not to cause any inconvenience to you.”
Even though formerly invisible things to me, such as the “yagura,” a guardian spirit standing behind Takenaka, the woman attached to the window, and the child with only his upper body and arms hanging around the doorway, had now become visibly perceptible to me as an ordinary phenomenon, I still maintained my intention not to resign from this job yet.
Fortunately, nothing like the other day had yet to unfold, and the man on that monitor had not shown up. Takenaka must be helping me covertly regarding that. From what I often heard from the manager, when Takenaka was not around, he always asked if anything had befallen me on the night shift.
He truly was the guardian spirit of this place, for which I was very grateful.
“I see.”
A mild smile accompanied Takenaka’s words. The distinction was that he ceased pressing me to resign. In exchange, he was slightly concerned about me.
Even though I was the one being a burden to him. Though I felt apologetic about it, it made me happy.
“Oh, by the way, you mentioned earlier that you like dogs, so what kind of dogs do you like?”
To compensate for the unpleasantness I had brought on him by talking about cats, I turned the conversation in the complete opposite direction.
Takenaka’s expression dramatically shifted and took the bait on the subject.
“A large dog, in particular… I actually live by myself right now, but I have one at home…”
“Heh, what breed is it?”
“A female labrador. She is just five years old now yet she is extremely intelligent. Sometimes when I return home, I am welcomed warmly… She is adorable,” Takenaka remarked with a somewhat joyful and soft expression on his face.
Come to think of it, I may have never discussed anything with Takenaka other than what happened here. In the beginning, I wondered what would happen, but once I became familiar with him, I realized that he was the type of person who chatted a lot.
Since the conversation was going well, I figured to continue this topic for a while longer.
“While I don’t have any pets and I live alone as well, my cousin has a hybrid dog that kind of looks like a Shiba dog. However, because the dog is kept outside, it stinks and is really filthy. So, every once in a while when I go to visit them, for some reason I ended up shampooing its hair, and the before-and-after of the dog was incredible, haha.”
He seemed to be rather intrigued when I told him this. Indeed, the next time I encountered difficulty in conversing with Takenaka, I would simply use this approach.
“Next time, I’ll take a picture of it and show it to you. It’s really amazingー”
The silence that had prevailed as a matter of course was shattered right then by an ear-splitting, piercing sound.
A myriad of something passed by outside the convenience store. Another resounding burst of sound erupted from the distance, seemingly ripping through the stillness of the space.
Straight ahead, something passed by. It was the sound of a ridiculously loud engine. A fleet of flashy-colored motorbikes sped by.
With a glance, I recognized the situation, ah, this was…
“Shut up, what time do you think it is?”
It was past two o’clock in the morning.
Even though not many cars or pedestrians were passing by here, I doubted any complaints would be made. Even on a deserted street like this, it was still a public place.
I turned to Takenaka after staring out in disbelief, and as I had anticipated, his expression revealed his displeasure.
Yeah yeah… He didn’t seem to like that kind of thing.
“Oh well, it’s so vexing. Those are undoubtedly modified on purpose to make the sound reverberate, what a nuisance they are.”
Takenaka gave a nod as if to convey his full agreement with what I said.
Well, I didn’t really care about them but I hoped they wouldn’t come this way. Regardless of the lack of customers, I didn’t want to deal with a biker gang…
Even if Takenaka, the guardian, was present, I doubted even he would be capable of dealing with the physical aspects…
Several hours later, the guys who had been lapping the road were heading home without dropping by the convenience store, probably thanks to my diligent prayers.
By dawn, things had fallen utterly silent outside.
I was relieved in two respects that nothing had turned up, and made it through that day’s night shift.
Ultimately, I arrived home with an indescribable feeling, having seen the same cat carcass that I had seen when I showed up for work.
Pages: 1 2